TALES OF THE FOLIO CLUB

“Tales of the Folio Club” is a title Poe gave in 1833 to a proposed collection of his early stories. The
collection as he originally described it was never published, although several optimistic references to it as forthcoming appeared after
the initial suggestion. A number of the tales he planned to include were composed before the end of 1831. He sent several of them to the
newly founded Saturday Courier of Philadelphia, which on June 4, 1831, had carried the announcement that “as soon as proper
arrangements can be effected, a premium of one hundred dollars will be awarded for the best American tale.” Rules for the contest
were published in July, setting December 1 as the deadline for the submission of manuscripts. Poe submitted several, but the prize went
to Delia Bacon for “Love’s Martyr.” In announcing the award on December 31, however, the Courier remarked:
“Many of the other Tales offered for the Premium, are distinguished by great merit”; and in the course of the year 1832 it
published five of Poe’s stories anonymously. These early texts were identified by Killis Campbell in 1916, and published in
facsimile by John Grier Varner in 1933.*

Meanwhile, in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter of August 4, 1832 there was an editorial note, perhaps written by
Lambert A. Wilmer, which indicates that Poe had composed a number of stories by that time:

Mr. Edgar A. Poe, has favoured us with the perusal of some manuscript tales written by him. If we were merely to say
that we had read them, it would be a compliment, for manuscript of this kind are very seldom read by anyone but the author. But
we may further say that we have read these tales every syllable, with the greatest pleasure, and for originality, richness of imagery
and purity of the style, few American authors in our opinion have produced anything superior. [page 14:] With Mr. Poe’s permission we may hereafter lay one or two of the tales before our readers.†

By May 4, 1833, Poe had formulated a plan for a volume to be called “Eleven Tales of the Arabesque,” which
he described in a letter to Joseph T. and Edwin Buckingham, editors of the New England Magazine, sending “Epimanes”
as a sample. The Messrs. Buckingham offered no encouragement, but within a few weeks it came from another source. On June 15, the
Baltimore Saturday Visiter announced a competition with a prize of fifty dollars for the best tale and twenty-five dollars for
the best poem submitted before October 1. Poe sent in a poem — “The Coliseum” — and a manuscript volume,
“The Tales of the Folio Club,” containing six stories very neatly written in small, print-like characters. On October 12,
the Visiter announced the awards and on October 19 published the prizewinners: John H. Hewitt’s poem, “The Song of
the Wind,” submitted under a pseudonym, and Poe’s story, “MS. Found in a Bottle.” Poe’s poem was published
the following week. Through this competition Poe first attracted attention as a writer of fiction. John P. Kennedy, one of the judges,
became much interested in him, and suggested that he send his collection of tales to the Philadelphia publishers Carey & Lea. Carey
felt that the volume would not be profitable, but he arranged the sale of at least one of the stories to an annual.

“The Tales of the Folio Club” never appeared as an independent volume. A revival of the scheme was
mentioned in the Southern Literary Messenger for August 1835, with the number of tales being given as sixteen. On September 2 of
the following year, in a letter trying to interest the Philadelphia publisher Harrison Hall in the project, Poe said there were
seventeen tales, “originally written to illustrate a larger work, ‘On the Imaginative Faculties.’ ” Hall
was not sufficiently interested, however, and the first collection of Poe’s stories — Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque (dated 1840) — did not appear until late in 1839.

The introduction Poe composed for the collection of tales he envisioned in 1833 was first published by Harrison in
1902. It is [page 15:] given here in what seems to be its proper place in
chronological order of composition, following the first eleven tales below.